Some proposals have been issued on a direction determining method of the present invention. For example, patent document 1 aims to determine a chip coil and intends to make it possible to specify the directions of terminal electrodes installed at left and right ends. The chip coil includes a glass ceramic substrate shaped in rectangle elongate right and left, a spiral coil formed on the front surface of the substrate, and a pair of the terminal electrodes each formed at a corresponding one of the left and right side portions of the substrate. An outer surface of a coil forming area is coated with polyimide. A need to determine a direction of the chip coil is based on the following reason. The terminal electrodes are comprised of a terminal electrode led from an outer end of the coil and a terminal electrode led from an inner end of the coil. These electrodes made to constantly assume a fixed posture are mounted on a circuit board. This intends to make constant the mode of generating magnetic flux in the mounted state.
The determination of the direction of the chip coil is done using the fact that a coil pattern is different between the front and rear of the substrate. Specifically, a centerline passing through the anteroposteriorly widthwise center of the substrate is assumed. Regions having the same area are assumed at respective targeted positions on the front side and rear side of the centerline. The coil patterns corresponding to the associated regions are optically read. The images thus read are subjected to binarization and the number of white pixels is obtained. Thus, the left-right direction of the chip coil is determined based on a difference in the number of the white pixels obtained.
The card processing system of patent document 2 aims to determine a non-contact type IC card equipped with a visible data display portion and is designed to determine whether or not the IC card is loaded thereto in such a manner that the front and back thereof is correct or whether or not the loading direction of the start-end of the IC card is correct. The IC card is configured such that an IC memory and an antenna are assembled into a card main body and a data display portion comprised of a rewritable heat-sensitive layer is provided on the front surface of the card main body. A mark for direction determination is provided on the rear surface of the card main body. The determination mark is formed of print display, a bar code, an optical code, a hole, a notch or the like. Such a mark is detected by an identifying sensor provided in the card processing system to determine whether or not the loading direction of the IC card is correct.
Incidentally, even if the IC card is loaded with the front and back thereof inverted or the loading direction of the start-end of the IC card is reversed, the card processing system can read and write the data of the IC chip. However, unless the IC card is loaded into the card processing system in the state where the data display portion is faced up and in the state where the loading direction of the start-end is correct, the display contents of the data display portion cannot be rewritten correctly. Because of this, the direction of the IC card is determined as described above.
A cartridge memory equipped with a direction determination identifier similar to that of the above-mentioned IC card can be seen in patent document 3. In the cartridge memory of patent document 3, an identifier corresponding to the above-mentioned determination mark is configured as follows. An IC chip and a loop antenna are assembled into a rectangular substrate, with the IC chip being disposed to one end of the substrate in the longitudinal direction. The front surface of the IC chip is coated with a black resin material. In operation, the cartridge memory is conveyed toward an automatic assembling apparatus along a linear conveyance path. During the conveyance, the presence or absence of the above-mentioned identifier is detected by an infrared sensor to thereby determine whether or not the conveyance posture of the cartridge memory is correct. If the cartridge memory does not assume a correct conveyance posture, the cartridge memory is sprayed with air jetted from an air nozzle and is rejected from the conveyance path.